Could what you recognize as "C" in the firts word of the picture be two "G", instead? In that case, the word would be "Loggia", which is the Italian for (masonic) "Lodge".
Also the strange symbol you described seems to point in that direction.
My advice is that you direct your question to someone expert in that field (which I'm not).

I would suggest that it might be the photograph of a group of Masonic Lodge Officers.

Here is a link to a general page about Freemasonry, but you would have to find out where the O.S.C.U. was based. It could - purely as an example be something like the Ohio State Church University Gallileo Lodge (Loggia). Most lodges have a 'star design' of their own and that might be what you can see in the photograph.

Very few works have been published in English on the topics of Italian heraldry, nobility and onomatology as these relate to genealogy. Yet all three fields depend upon genealogical research. This concise presentation is not intended as a historical treatise, but rather as a simple guide for those i...

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